


Not Time's Fool

by novemberlite



Series: through the looking glass [2]
Category: Merlin - Fandom
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Dark, Drama, Dubious Consent, M/M, Porn With Plot, Sexual Slavery, arthur has a beard, king!arthur, merlin's misplaced his timeline, smut happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novemberlite/pseuds/novemberlite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has never made a habit of counting days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Time's Fool

Arthur has never made a habit of counting days.

The court lives according to occasion and the change in seasons; there are festivities to record every battle fought and every battle won, feasts to herald every new moon, and year, and reign. The castle walls age as tapestries are adorned and replaced, as the red-gold of fall eases into the quiet blue of winter, but the transformation escapes Arthur’s notice.

His people are keepers of time, the land their marker. Seeds are sown at the same time every year, the harvest never delayed. Wheat ripens in the field and summer arrives in Camelot; farmers notch their doors as they wait for the first snow. Arthur hasn’t visited the countryside since he was a boy, but he knows peasants rise with the sun and follow the last rays of light into sleep.

Arthur wonders what it would be like, on occasion, to keep time by the sun instead of exhaustion. He would think it the burden of a king to stay awake as long as the torches flicker if he hadn’t witnessed his father fall into bed right after supper, drowsy and lax from both roast and wine. 

It is three years into Arthur’s reign but his eyes have yet to be weighted by indulgence. He wakes to the sound of knights in the courtyard and sleeps when the last candle burns out, pores over treatises and reports until his vision blurs and the weight of his crown becomes more than he can bear. His advisors are unconcerned about the state of the kingdom – _our strength is unparalleled,_ they say, _our armies never bested_ – but Arthur is plagued by visions of a kingdom divided, unrest in the streets and conspiracies in the castle. 

They chuckle politely when he mentions rebellion, and Arthur knows all they see is a boy trying to fill his father’s mold, a roughshod prince not ready for the crown. It incenses him, their subservient disregard, but he is careful not to let it show, keeps a smile on his face even as nails dig into his palm. He listens to their suggestions about taxes and truces, neighboring lords and far away lands, and turns his mind into a sieve, lets them slide away like grains of sand. 

He feels the loss of direction keenly, and paranoia settles like a fog. Trust becomes a forgotten commodity and he holds the court together by force of will alone. No one is fool enough to doubt his prowess as a warrior and he never allows them to forget: his council thinks him half mad – can’t understand why he leaves the throne to lead a battle, don’t know that each victory feels like approval from a kingdom that still seeks its king. 

His father’s reign saw trials rare and execution common; the whisper of magic still begets a hanging but there is no longer a hand at Arthur’s back that leads him to the courtyard, no stony presence that commands he watch. So he leaves the executioner to his practice and the people to their entertainment – submerges himself in matters of the state, bound by the gnawing hope that says Camelot may find him worthy yet. 

And devotion has never been found lacking in Arthur: his days are measured by the shivering boundaries of the realm, and there exists no distraction enough to pull him away from the whats and hows of his kingdom – until. 

Until that boy. _Merlin._

Arthur has never made a habit of counting days, but he finds himself counting hours now, the minutes that would keep him from that plush mouth and cautious blue eyes. He feels like a child again, very much the impatient prince his advisors see as he sits in council and tracks the passage of the sun with his eyes, hands twitching at his sides. 

It is no longer the excitement of something new and untried; it has been four days and Arthur has taken the boy more than a dozen times, appetite derailed from fowl and roast to the sweat that collects in the small of his back. Arthur isn’t sure what it is, certainly nothing special about the act itself – he’s had bedmates more experienced and innocent, more energetic and pliant, tighter and sweeter and beautiful beyond imagining. 

But it is the boy – Merlin, his name worn and familiar on Arthur’s tongue – that he keeps in his bed even after he’s spent, Merlin he presses open in the middle of the night and finds sore and well-used, Merlin who voices sleepy complaints before he realizes who is fucking him and his breath hitches on a gasp. 

Four days and Arthur has discovered no more than his name. He has learned the boy’s body, memorized the dips and planes and catalogued his hungry little sounds, but his eyes remain shrouded and mind closed. It unsettles Arthur more than he cares to admit, that the boy has had Arthur’s audience for hours at a time – when one would assume a man at his most vulnerable, sated, cock tucked between moist thighs – and has yet to voice any plea, ask for any recompense. 

The boy is a peasant; there _must_ be something he wants: finery, gold, the king’s favour. He doesn’t seem ambitious enough for the latter, eyes too guileless and face too open, but Arthur is well versed in caution, knows the snakes that look harmless are often the most poisonous. 

It becomes difficult to keep that thought at the forefront when the boy is mewling into the pillows and fisting his hands in the sheets. If he wasn’t so responsive, he would be one of the worst lovers Arthur has ever had: he spares little to no thought for his king’s pleasure, a transgression that should make Arthur furious, but only leaves him darkly amused. 

Once they settle into the rhythm of a fuck, the boy seems to forget who lies between his thighs and initial caution gives way to pure hedonism. His face goes slack and tension bleeds out of his body as his hips rock back, shifting until Arthur’s cock nudges the right places, positioned for his pleasure. Arthur is certain he isn’t aware of what he’s doing, but that isn’t any reason for allowing it to continue: the boy prefers short, shallow thrusts and makes petulant noises into the pillow when Arthur slides in hard, brow furrowed and mouth a displeased moue, and Arthur – for reasons even he can’t decipher – finds himself slowing down, moving his hips in tight circles until the boy starts biting at the pillow and shivering apart. 

Compliance lasts only as long as it takes him to come and Arthur is strangely charmed by the boy’s inherent selfishness. His body goes soft and loose after the pull of orgasm but his face shutters, mouth pressed in a stubborn line even as Arthur tries to ease more sounds from him. His eyes squeeze shut despite Arthur’s command to keep them open and his throat bobs around a moan when Arthur thumbs the place they join; he goes stiff as a board once they’ve finished, breathing shallow, almost panicked. 

It intrigues Arthur the first few times, and annoys him the rest. The boy would do well to fear him, and Arthur would approve if he thought fear was what caused him to tense. But it isn’t, and Arthur isn’t sure how he knows but has lived through enough battles that he no longer questions his instinct. 

The boy is a mystery still, distant and a little lost. Arthur thinks he could unravel him if he wasn’t so swamped by desire, if the want to investigate wasn’t overrun by the want to spread his legs and slide in between. The night turns heavy and warm with him in Arthur’s bed, and sleep encroaches before he has time to formulate a question, utter a command. They don’t cross paths during the day and this is Arthur’s own doing; thoughts of pushing the boy against the wall and tumbling him in broad daylight erode his concentration enough as it is. If Arthur allowed his hands to wander along with his mind, his throne would gather dust and Camelot would suffer from an absent king.

He leaves the boy to his own devices and doesn’t wonder how he whiles his time, certainly doesn’t imagine him touching himself languidly in Arthur’s absence, putting long fingers to good use. Arthur doesn’t wonder if he spends the day in bed or takes to wandering the castle, bright eyes wide in awe at the grandeur, and it takes one lazy afternoon walk to the library and a familiar mop of hair to quiet any wonder there might have been. 

The boy – Merlin, Arthur reminds himself – doesn’t look very much like one when he stands this tall. He nearly dwarfs the scullery maid he’s cornered, hands fluttering, more animated than Arthur has ever seen him. His back is to the window and sunlight casts a halo around his head; Arthur retreats into the shadows and watches, tracks the rapid movement of his mouth and tries to piece together what’s being said. 

Merlin’s brow is furrowed and shoulders tense, but the lines of his face are strangely hopeful until the maid shakes her head. His mouth shapes the words _are you certain_ and then it’s as if life itself is being leeched out of his body; he stands still and desolate before curving his lips into an ugly half-smile and walking away. 

The maid stares after him until he is out of sight, and nearly runs into Arthur when she turns. He ignores her half-gasped apology, the stuttered _your Highness_. He asks about her acquaintance and her face pinches as she denies, “No, I don’t, I don’t even know his name.”

 _Merlin_ , he thinks, and unclenches his jaw before asking, “What did he require of you?”

“He said he was searching for a maid,” she blurts, “Guinevere. I said I didn’t know anyone by the name and I know most everyone in the castle, sire, and I—”

“Why was he looking for her?” 

“He didn’t say,” the maid hedges, and Arthur thinks, darkly, _because you didn’t ask_. His eyes fall to the clasp of her hands, knuckles too white for the conversation to have been just about another maid.

“What else did he say?” Arthur asks, and her eyes flicker, hesitation crosses her face for a split second and Arthur will wonder, later, how Merlin charmed her so that she considered lying to her king for a boy whose name she didn’t even know. 

She swallows, and says, “He asked after—after a Gaius, sire,” and something heavy uncoils in Arthur’s stomach, a great beast rising from slumber. “I told him, I-I said I hadn’t got a clue who that was—”

“Don’t you?” Arthur’s voice is low, grating. “Or were you too young to witness his execution?” 

“No, my lord,” she whispers, “I saw. I didn’t mean to lie, I just. We aren’t s’posed to speak of it.” 

Arthur forgets, sometimes, how superstitious peasants can be. _Speak not its name, and it will cease to exist._ The maid’s widened eyes tell him just how much she saw and Arthur remembers his father’s hand on the back of his sweaty neck, blood draining from his face at the quiet, _watch._

“If he seeks you out again,” Arthur says, “report to me, and no one else.” 

“My lord,” she acquiesces, and Arthur dismisses her with a nod, thinks from the way she scurries away that she’ll run in the other direction if she comes upon so much as Merlin’s shadow. 

The sun hasn’t begun its descent and Arthur has to squint against the light flooding in from the window when he turns. His skin is prickling, restless from revelation, and his mind flits through every look the boy has given him, eyes narrowed and lidded and wide, mouth so pink against pale skin, paler sheets. What could he want with one of the most dangerous sorcerers Camelot had ever known? How could he know—how could he _not_ know, why would he think to ask—

Arthur rubs a hand against his mouth and stares into the sun. The temptation to find and fuck the answers out of him is strong but it is barely high noon: council awaits and so do his knights, and this is nothing that can’t wait until night, until his duty is done for another day, but. 

But his feet lead him to his chambers and Arthur laughs, short, at the futility of trying to keep away. Perhaps he’s been ensorcelled, Arthur muses, reeled in by a nebulous hook of magic and bright eyes. Perhaps he should draw his sword as he opens the door, slide the blade between the boy’s ribs and see the magic drain out along with his blood.

Arthur steps inside and his hand is nowhere near his sword.

The boy stands in front of the window, one hand pressed to the glass, the other against his mouth. The bow of his head is almost deferential; to what, Arthur doesn’t know and doesn’t have the time to glean – he turns at the click of the door, startled, lips parting to voice a soft ah before he locks his jaw, cuts off the word. 

There are numerous things Arthur can say – wants to say – the foremost being _kneel,_ and then, _beg,_ but the boy looks different in the sunlight, this close, and what comes out is,

“Undress me.” 

Something like relief skids over his face; his lashes dip, then lift to meet Arthur’s eyes and hunger gnaws at Arthur’s gut, sharpened by the slow simmer of rage. Hands come up to fumble at the tie of his cloak, fingers clumsy for all that they’re elegant, long and fine boned. This close, Arthur can smell himself on the boy, a heavy musk that makes the primal part of him bare its teeth and howl. 

The tunic he has donned is rough and Arthur slides his hands under, finds the silk of his skin. Ribs rise beneath his hands on a sharp gasp and the boy yanks on the tie, nearly knocking Arthur’s jaw. His gaze lands somewhere beyond Arthur’s left shoulder, now, and he trembles, shakes under the slow drag of Arthur’s palms on his body. 

“Have you been trained as a servant?” Arthur asks, watching the tips of his ears turn red with fascination. His fingers find the boy’s nipples and Arthur pets languidly at his chest, for a moment, before pinching them, educing another shudder. 

“No,” the boy replies, belated, and his hands are clutching at Arthur’s shoulders, tie forgotten and the knot more convoluted than it had been before. 

“It shows,” Arthur murmurs, and the boy’s eyes snap up, narrow; his mouth opens as Arthur’s nails catch on sensitive flesh and all that comes out is a small, broken noise. 

Arthur slides a knee between his legs and finds him half hard already, wonders how long he would stand the teasing before rubbing himself off on Arthur’s thigh. His skin feels hot, almost feverish, and Arthur could press forward, now, whisper _sorcerer_ into the boy’s ear and see shock settle on his face like the most obvious confession. He wouldn’t be able to hide; those eyes would give him away, and Arthur wants to see them widen in fright, wants his breath to catch and pulse to race, wants to feel it thrum against his teeth – he wants – just _wants._

The boy – _Merlin_ – falls into him and Arthur jerks his tunic off, follows the arch of his back with greedy hands. A voice that bears striking resemblance to his father’s makes itself known in Arthur’s mind, hisses, _you’re inviting a viper into your bed, Arthur,_ and the boy’s eyes snap open as if he’s heard it too, glint of gold trapped in an unreal blue. 

They fall back onto the bed and Arthur latches onto Merlin’s throat, thinks, _I’ll take my chances._ It is the most reckless, foolish thought he’s had since his father’s death and Arthur has to choke down the laugh that coasts on its heels; the sun is a gold disc behind the disarray of Merlin’s hair, still high in the sky, and there will be time for questions and confessions later, once he’s had his fill of this boy, this bright eyed sorcerer turned pliant in Arthur’s arms. 

There will be time.


End file.
